Can a dvd laser be used to cut plastic pcb stencils?

Capt. Quirk

Is it possible for a small output laser, perhaps just a dvd burning laser, to cut plastic pcb stencils using a small gantry type cnc router?

Or even an old hacked HP Pen plotter?

Microcontrolled

No. I've tried, so unless I did something wrong, no. I was using a DVD reader laser, though.

xanatos

Not enough power - especially a reader diode. You need to be looking at around a watt minimum - and even then, the cut needs to be somewhat slow.

There are some new diodes available fairly cheap - they are 445nm blue lasers from projectors and with a proper current-limited supply can run at around 1.0 to 1.3 watts (with cooling) in CW mode. You could replace the pen head in an X-y plotter and cut thin dark plastic reasonably as long as you slowed the speed of the xy table's transitions.

Check out this video of a guy who put a 445nm 1watt blue laser diode into a star trek phaser prop and watch it pop balloons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6iiNs4J5VM&feature=player_embedded

If you want speed in cutting, you would probably do better with an IR laser diode. Those are available at up to 60Watts or more and can do some SERIOUS cutting, but require extensive cooling. IR optics are somewhat different than visible and are much more expensive. Since the wavength is longer, it's also more difficult to focus to a SUPER fine point, which would be important for high-precision cutting.

If you do want to get into lasers like this - please, please use good eye protection. There's glasses for every wavelength and they're cheap - especially considering that at power levels around 1 watt you can permanently destroy significant vision instantly, from just a stray reflection.

I work with these lasers quite a bit and have some good schematics of VERY simple drivers and some calculations for various diodes... I'll attach the file.

Another good resource is Laser Pointer Forums - laserpointerforums.com - this forum is RICH with information on using lasers, especially diode lasers, so spend some time searching through there. Be forewarned, though, that there are a lot of "personality" issues on the board, so be prepared for some drama - there is no where near the level of personal recognizance and decorum on that forum as there is here on the Parallax forums! :-)

You can also find great info on Photon Lexicon.

Happy Lasing!

Dave